A major problem for manufacturers of popular trademarked items is the sale of counterfeit goods carrying a counterfeit label purporting to identify the goods as made by the trademark owner. The manufacturers of counterfeited items are desirous of products and procedures by which they could provide counterfeit-resistant labels or means, so that retailers, consumers, investigators and other persons could readily detect whether the label or garment was a genuine one.
Existing techniques for the identification of articles for purposes of theft prevention or prevention of counterfeiting include light coding of a spot on the article. The pattern produced by shining an intense beam of light through a spot on the article is read with a solid state image sensor having a grid of light sensing elements. The image on the grid is translated by a computer into a digital code number which identifies the material. Decoding requires subjecting the article again to the same light reading process and comparing the new data to the retained digital code. This light reading system requires somewhat expensive and sophisticated equipment for both encoding, storage and decoding the coded message.
In the thread-making art, there are known techniques for slitting a sheet material such as polyester into narrow widths in a conventional slitting or cutting apparatus. The resulting thin strands or fibers are received and stored on spools. The width of the strands may vary but will normally be somewhere in the range of 0.135 to 0.37 mm. A useful procedure for forming such strands or fibers from a sheet material is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,336,092 which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention draws upon this slitting technology to arrive at an improved thread for identification purposes.